Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Born of a flower and growing to only a couple of inches tall, poor Thumbelina is worried she'll never meet someone her own size, until she happens to catch the eye of Prince Cornelius of the Fairies. Just as soon as she finds love, however, it's torn away when she's kidnapped by Ms. Toad. Now Thumbelina has to escape Ms. Toad's grasp and search for Prince Cornelius. Luckily, there's a whole city of animals willing to help.
Don Bluth's adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale is a competent but uneven musical that struggles to distinguish itself. The plot hews closely to the source material but pads its runtime with repetitive kidnapping-and-escape sequences and romantic diversions that slow momentum. The voice cast, including Jodi Benson, brings warmth and charm, elevating the material somewhat. The animation is lush in places with Bluth's characteristic expressiveness, though it lacks the visual ambition of his earlier work. Barry Manilow's songs are generally forgettable and the film feels derivative of the Disney Renaissance it was competing against. The ending is a conventional fairy-tale resolution with little emotional payoff given the thin character development throughout.